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YOUNG GIRL 
















































































































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COPYRIGHT, 1920, 

by HILDEGARDE FLANNER 




v>C!.A604861 
?. 7 IQ2Q 





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INTRODUCTION 

T HE publication of this volume of verse 
by Miss Hildegarde Flanner has been un- 
dertaken by the Crocker Press not only 
because some of the poems it contains were 
selected by the committee of award for the 
Cook Prize at the University of California, but 
also because Miss Flanner’s poetry has proved 
with such frequency its power to move and to 
give pleasure to persons who have read it, or 
who have heard it read. The publishers feel, 
moreover, that the selection is an appropriate 
one because it is representative of California. 

Although the author is not a Californian by 
birth, the poems here collected were all written 
while she was a student at Berkeley, and to 
claim them therefore as Californian is not per- 
haps a too flagrant exhibition of that acquisi- 
tiveness for literary and artistic personalities 
with which we of the extreme West have, at 
times and not without some color of truth, been 
charged. But the point is not an important one, 
for, since these poems have come out of Cali- 
fornia, and since, in thought and atmosphere, 
they so subtly refled: their provenience, may 



we not offer them here as a gift from this far 
shore, with confidence that they will in the fu- 
ture speak for our desire to foster creative abil- 
ity that is unfolded among us though it be not 
native to our soil ? 

There is in this approaching voice a fresh 
music that is quite its own. Its cadences, never 
severely patterned, possess an unfailing grace, 
and match a sensitive word-play, which in ap- 
perceptive images, gives us a spontaneous and 
valid transcription of emotion and expresses a 
vision at once various, intense, and delicate. 
This naive but illuminating didtion is secure in 
the poet’s instindtive acceptance of the artist’s 
obligation to express himself always with sin- 
cerity, personality, and style, and we welcome 
in the freshness of her images a happy avoid- 
ance of imitative thought, of the approximate 
phrase, and of the cliche. 

The typographic and decorative dress with 
which these lyrics have been clothed will, we 
hope, appeal to the friends of the Crocker Press 
as an earnest and conscientious effort to main- 
tain a worthy standard in “the art preservative 
of all the arts.” 


Porter Garnett. 



CONTENTS 


Young Girl 
This Morning 
Garden 
Mood 

Confession 


PAGE 


Other Poems 
Discovery 

“Birch Grove ” — Boris Anisfeld 

The Singer 

Birds 







22SS 


— — 


T/z* committee of award for the Emily Chamberlain 
Cook pri^e consisted of Professor Harold L. Bruce , 
Mr. Edgar Lee Masters, and Professor Paul Shorey. 


Acknowledgments for printing some of the 
poems in this volume are made to the University 
of California Chronicle, the Occident, 
and the New York Tribune. 



















" - ". . . -v — 




■Tiii r -' ■-***&:« 


i.iifli liiatfi jj-ii it '.Vj'lfAii n 





THIS MORNING 


A FTER the emotion of rain 

The mist parts across the morning 
Like the smile of one 
Who has laughed in sleep 
And cannot remember why. 

The damp road companions my feet 
And is a friend to every step. 

Above me winter goldfinches 

Cling like fruit 

To the delighted birch trees; 

And the studious earth, 

Thinking what flowers to speak in next, 
Moves restlessly with small, wise birds 
Who read the tucks in the moss, 

The symbols on the beetle-wings, 

And the comedies on pink and yellow pebbles, 
Which I am too tall to see. 


i 





III. NASTURTIUM 


I SHALL hide my discretion 
In your willing brightness 
And give you to a snail to hold 
And say, 

“Catch me if you can, 

I am going to China.’’ 


IV. TIGRIDIA 


L ET three naked men 

Carry me across the jungle. 
There is a broken temple 
Where I must meet the new moon 
At sunrise. 


V. PURPLE IRIS 


COULD drown 
In one deep petal 








VI. DIANTHUS 


T HEY say that my grandmother often 
picked you 

And placed your quaint perfume 
At her tight girdle. 


My grandmother 
Did Vergil into French 
And then had seven children 


Dianthus 


VII. SUNFLOWER 


Y OU must have more wisdom than any. 
For the sun tells you 
What God says, 

And the wild canaries tell you 
What it is 

To be a yellow motion 
In the air. 


MOOD 


M Y shadow going on before 
Flutters like a leaf, 

But it can never reach the door 
Before my grief. 

My grief goes first and takes the key 
To open the door and welcome me. 

He offers me a lonely cup 
Full of lily wine 

And says, “Come sister, share this drink. 
Yours and mine.” 

He weds a pale blue candle 

To a loving flame 

And, holding it before his lips, 

Breathes over it my name. 

He lays his forehead to my knee 
And 1 stroke his sorrowing hair. 

The look of it beneath my hands 
Is soft and fair. 

He opens his mouth and sings one note 
That strikes like rain against my throat; 
Then he leads me jealously to bed, 

Lest I meet my dreams uncompanied 

What a desolate thing my house would be 
If grief were not there to welcome me. 



CONFESSION 


T HERE is an angel 

Whose thoughts at morning 
Are like a newly broken pomegranate, 
And whose words at noon 
Are golden ice 
Warmed into music. 


There is an angel 

Whose eyes are like fuchsias 

Whoever sits beneath them 

Desires forthwith to be a passionate vine 

And bear a flower. 


There is an angel 

Whose steps are slower than white clover, 

For each motion 

Is so heavy with beauty 

That swiftness dies beneath the burden. 


But I would rather live blessedly with you 

Than go expectantly to heaven. 



DISCOVERY 


U NTIL my lamp and I 

Stood close together by the glass, 
I had not ever noticed 
I was a comely lass. 


My aunts have always nodded, 
“Sweet child. 

She has a gentle soul 
And mild.” 


And so, one night, 

I took my lamp and said 
“I’ll look upon my gentle soul 
Before I go to bed.” 


I could not find it; no, 

But gazing hard I spied 
Something much more near to me, 
White armed and amber-eyed. 

And as I looked I seemed to feel 
Warm hands upon my breast, 
Where never any hands but mine 
Were known to rest. 





BIRCH GROVE 


■Boris Amsfeld 

Je perns ce que je sens , pas ce que je vois . ” 

I CANNOT find a path there 
For mortal feet at all, 

Where the shepherd boy is golden 
And the leaves are a waterfall. 


I cannot wantonly intrude 
Into that pagan solitude, 

Where little dream-goats in a row 
Trot quaintly, primly to and fro. 

One hand upraised would be to crush 
The wonder-strung fragility 
Of trees that with a slow, still rush 
Flow down from high infinity. 

There is a chain I cannot sever .... 

There is a wall that never, never 

I watch the little dream-goats pace 
Within that dim and dryad place. 




THE SINGER 


S OME one is coming down the street 
singing 

With his carol-book held out to you 
Come and lean against his broad, dusty 
shoulder. 


He sings the beautiful, gnarled hands of 
factories 

And the eyes that shine in a dark slum. 
He sings a mighty melody for friendship 
And a tender consolation for dishonor. 


He sings valleys that hide the foxes, 
Yellow pools along the sea-beach. 

The red gates of day 

And the black gates of prisons, 

With always and always the same refrain 
Democracy, Myself, America ! 




BIRDS 


B ELOVED, the black swans of my eyes 
Are loosed to your behest, 

And must I still keep caged from you 
The white swans of my breast ? 

My hands, like slender pigeons, 

Flutter the whole day through. 

Did you not know the little things 
Home unto you ? 


My lips, like slim canaries, 

Sing when 1 hear you speak. 
Beloved, bend and stroke once more 
The finches of my cheek. 




PRINTED AT SAN FRANCISCO 
IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER. MDCCCCXX 
BY H. S. CROCKER COMPANY, INCORPORATED 
THE TYPOGRAPHY DESIGNED 
BY PORTER GARNETT 





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